sunlight. Perhaps it was Nona's general brownness—she had Dexter Manford's brown crinkled hair, his strong black lashes setting her rather usual-looking gray eyes; and the texture of her dusky healthy skin, compared to Lita's, seemed rough and opaque. The comparison added to her general vague sense of discouragement. "It's not one of my beauty days," she thought. 

 Jim was drawing her arm through his. "Come along, my girl. Is there going to be any lunch?" he queried, turning toward the dining-room. 

 "Oh, probably. In this house the same things always happen every day," Lita averred with a slight grimace. 

 "Well, I'm glad lunch does—on the days when I can make a dash up-town for it." 

 "On others Lita eats goldfish food," Nona laughed. 

 "Luncheon is served, madam," the butler announced. 

 The meal, as usual under Lita's roof, was one in which delicacies alternated with delays. Mrs. Manford would have been driven out of her mind by the uncertainties of the service and the incoherence of the menu; but she would have admitted that no one did a pilaff better than Lita's cook. Gastronomic refinements were wasted on Jim, whose indifference to the possession of the Wyant madeira was one of his father's severest trials. ("I shouldn't have been surprised if you hadn't cared, Nona; after all, you're a Manford; but that a Wyant shouldn't have a respect for old wine!" Arthur Wyant often lamented to her.) As for Lita, she either nibbled languidly at new health foods, or made ravenous inroads into the most indigestible dish presented to her. To-day she leaned back, dumb and indifferent, while Jim devoured what was put before him as if unaware that it was anything but canned beef; and Nona watched the two under guarded lids. 

 The telephone tinkled, and the butler announced: "Mr. Manford, madam." 

 Nona Manford looked up. "For me?" 

 "No, miss; Mrs. Wyant." 

 Lita was on her feet, suddenly animated. "Oh, all right... Don't wait for me," she flung over her shoulder as she made for the door. 

 "Have the receiver brought in here," Jim suggested; but she brushed by without heeding. 

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